Furniture and now sustainable giant Ikea is planning to introduce a vegetarian version of their famous signature meatballs in an effort to be more eco-friendly. From
Eater:
Green Business reports that Joanna Yarrow, the head of sustainability for Ikea, said this week at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change event that the regular meat meatballs are the "most carbon intensive" dish on their menu. The Telegraph notes that this is because of the "high carbon dioxide emissions involved in the farming process" of cattle and pork and the high volume, around 150 million meatballs, that Ikea sells each year. A less carbon intensive chicken meatball is also currently in development.
Could Ikea's sustainability people be reading DKos? I wrote about Ikea's impressive carbon reduction commitment of being carbon neutral by 2020
here. I ended the article with this paragraph:
I don't see how they can continue selling their famous swedish meatballs if they expect to be carbon neutral by 2020. Meatless meatballs anyone?
Six months later we have the news that indeed they are very serious about sustainability and understand the immense contribution of meat consumption to climate change.
Eminent climate scientist, James Hansen and Dr. Rajendra Pachauri , head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are in agreement that reducing meat consumption is the most effective individual action we can take to reduce the worst effects of climate change.
This action from Ikea speaks a thousand words. We need more of this.